Solving Problem Procedure


An accurate database of your network’s topology, configuration, and
performance.
 A solid understanding of the protocols and models used in
communication between your management server and the managed
devices.
 Methods and tools that allow you to interpret and act upon gathered
information.

6
 Some terms
NOC(Network Operation Center): Focused on Network and Systems
They act as a sort of mission control center to monitor and manage a network,
including system security, performance, and backup processes.

Help Desk: Focused on End Users

The Help Desk directly responds to the end user, or someone representing them,
and resolves technical problems as they arise. Communication can often be
initiated by clicking a support icon, sending an email, or calling by phone.

Network management : It is defined as Operations Adminstration, Maintenance,

and Provisioning (OPAM) of network and services.

7
 Case history 1
Importance of Topology
“Case of Footprint”
A stable corporate network consisting of several minicomputers and
about 100 desktop workstations and personal computers suddenly
started “crashing” .

Part of the network went down in the engineering area one morning.
Since there were a whole series of users and at that time we were not
using a STAR (hub) topology, but rather the old -fashioned serial
topology( where all the users were daisy chained to the coax), we
suspected a break in the chain, probably at a transreceiver tap.

8
 Case history 1
Importance of Topology
“Case of Footprint”...
Lacking sophisticated NMS tools, information
System personnel started walking the hall ways
asking the users if anyone had just been doing
anything out of the ordinary, which might have
broken the chain and caused the problem.

The guys came back and reported that no one had

said that they had “done anything”

9
 Case history 1
Importance of Topology
“Case of Footprint”...
The Vice President started back down the halls with
the guys and peeked into each office. Finally, the
VP stopped and said “Let's look up in the ceiling
here.” Sure enough, they found a transceiver that
someone had been fooling with and that was not
properly connected, which had caused the break.
Once connected, the network segment came back
up.

10
 The engineer's querry

The guys asked” Why did you say _try here?”

particularly since the engineer in that office claimed
ignorance.
VP camly pointed to a dusty image of a sneaker
footprint on the engineer's desk and the ceiling tile
that was ajar above the desk
and said - “ you need to use all the diagnostic tools
at your disposal!”

11
 Case history 2
Centrally Managed Network Issues
An integrated network management system (INMS) was integrating
alarms from multiple element mangement systems (EMSs) in a service
provider network. Each EMS manges a domain of network elements
and passes the relevant events to the INMS as shown in Fig .

12
 Case history 2
Centrally Managed Network Issues....

Each EMS records and displays the receipt time of the alarm. The same is
transmitted to the INMS. It was observed that the indication of the time
at which the alarm occurred was significantly different in INMS from
that indicated in the EMSs that were sending alarms. The alarm
occurrence time was considerably delayed, sometimes by hours, in
INMS.

13
 Case history 2
Centrally Managed Network Issues....
Where was the the root cause of the problem.
Is it network delay?
Is the delay due to excessive number of events?
Is it due to input/ output (I/O) limitation of the input port of the
INMS?
Is it due to I/O output port of the EMS?
Is it in the software of either EMS or INMS or both?
If it is in the INMS software, should the filtering of unnecessary
events at the input take care of the problem?

14
 Case history 2
Centrally Managed Network Issues....

The answers to most of these questions were affirmative for

each , but to a varying degree in each case.
The predominant cause is the stress on NMSs although it can
be traced sometimes to network elements in the various
domains.
Transmission of un necessary alarms also causes a stress on
the network and networks have gone down due to
uncontrolled generations of network management
messages.

15
 Some Common Network problems
The most common and serious problems in network are
connectivity failures and are handled under the category of fault
mangement.
Fault is generally interpreted as failures in accessing networks
and systems by users.
Network failure is caused more often by a node failure than
failure of passive links.
When this happens, all downstream systems from that interface
are inaccessible.
Such failures are associated with failures of the network interface
card.

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 Some Common Network problems....

 Another cause of network connectivity failure is

procedural, but very common. Network connectivity is
based on the IP address, which is a logical address
assigned by the network administrator.
 The IP address is uniquely associated with a physical MAC
address of the network component. However, mistakes are
made in assigning duplicate IP address, especially in an
enterprise environment with multiple system
adminstrators.

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 Some Common Network problems....

 A host or system interface problem in a shared medium can

bring the entire segment down, sometimes intermittently.

This could be a nightmare for the network manger to
isolate without causing interruption in service.
 A network manger uses intuitive knowledge to look for
patterns such as change in configuration, addition of new
equipment of facility, etc in resolving such problems.

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 Some Common Network problems....

 Intermittent problems could also occur due to

traffic overload causing packet loss. Sometimes the
management system may indicate failures, when in
actually data traffic is flowing normally.
Performance monitoring tools could be useful in
tracking such problems.

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 Some Common Network problems....

 Power hits could reset network component

configuration, causing network failures.
The network has a permanent configuration (default)
and a dynamic configuration (run-time) and thus a
power hit could change the configuration.

20
 Some Common Network problems....

 Finally, there is the non-problem , which really

means that the cause of failure is a mystery.

 There is nothing else that a network manager could

do except turn the system off and then go.

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 Challenges of IT Managers

Computer and telecommunication networks are

merging fast into converged network with common
modes and media of transportation and distribution.
As in the case of broadband networks, the IT manager
needs to maintain both types of networks.
Thus, the data communications manager functions and
telecommunciataion manger functions have been
merged to that of the IT manager.

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 Challenges of IT Managers...

With explosion of information storage and transfer in the

modern information era, management of information is also
the responsibility of the IT manager, with the title of CIO,
Chief Information Officer.
For example, the IT manager needs to worry in detail about
who can access the information and what information they
can access, i.e., authentication and authorization issues of
security mangement. The corporate network needs to be
secured for privacy and content, using firewalls and
encryption.

23
 Challenges of IT Managers....

Technology is moving fast and corporate growth is so

enormous, that a CIO has to keep up with new
technologies and the responsibility for financial
investment that the corporation commits to. This
amounts to millions of the dollars, and the success
of failures of making the right guess-- not choice
---- could make or break the CIO's job.

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 Perspective of Network Managers

Even use of the best NMS does not solve the

problems associated with the building and
maintaining a network but it is a necessary tool.
Thus, learning network management involves more
than just understanding Networks and network
management protocol.

25
 1.What are your top challenging activities in managing the
network?
 Rapid advance of technology.

Problem analysis – needs human intuition and skill besides
sophisticated management tools.
 Anticipate customer demands.
 Acquire and retain human resources.

Manage client – server environment in converged networks.
 Networking with emerging technology necessitates the need
for continuing education.

26
 1.What are your top challenging activities in managing the
network?......

Collaborative research between academic institutions and
industry.
 Maintain reliability, that is, make changes, upgrades, etc., without
disrupting the network and impacting business.
 Diagnose problems or outages in a non-disruptive manner
(without impacting other users on the network).
 Estimate the value of a technology transition. For example, should
one transition over to accommodate the increasing number of IP
addresses with IPv6 or continue with IPv4 with Network Address
Translation (NAT) as a hierarchical addressing schemes?

27
2. Which elements of managing your network require
most of your time? What percentage of time do you
spend on maintenance compared to growth?
 A 30 - 80% growth, 20-70% maintenance based
on organiztion
 Configuring the management system itself takes
most of the time
 Expanding the network
 Gathering and analyzing statistics for upper
mangement review to conduct business.

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3. How did you or would you manage your network
without an NMS?
 Reactively, not proactively; firefighting
 Troubleshooting tools eg., sniffer, ping etc.
 Home -grown systems using open source , eg.,
Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG)
 Rely on consultant advice and technical
information for growth decisions

29
 4. Do you need an NMS? Why?
 For proactive management of network

Verify customer configuration
 Diagnose problem
 Provide statistics on performance
 Help remove bottlenecks
 NMS formalizes the manual practice of network
management
 NMS products reflect the company's practice that develops
them

To see the trend in growth
30
 5. What problems would you expect the NMS to
resolve, and how?

Enhance customer satisfaction by meeting the Service Level
Agreement (SLA)

Save time and people resource and thus enhance productivity

Turn around shorter for resolution of problems

Gather statistics and predict trends for planning purposes

Document events

Troubleshooting
 Remove constraints and bottlenecks
 Fault isolation

Expect the NMS to do a root cause analysis and pinpoint failures

31
 Network Management
Network Management can be defined as Operations, Administration,
Maintenance and Provisioning (OAMP) of network and services.
 The Operation group is concerned with daily operations in
providing network services.
 The Network Adminstration is concerned with establishing and
adminstering overall goals, policies , and procedures of network
management.

The Installation and Maintenance (I &M) group handles
functions that includes both installation and repairs of facilities and
equipments.

Provisioning involves network planning and circuit provisioning,
traditionally handled by the Engineering or Provisioning department.

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 Goal of Network Management

The goal of network mangement is to ensure that the

users of the network are provided IT services with a
quality of service that they expect.
Towards meeting this goal, the management should
establish a poilicy to either formally or informally
contract an SLA with users.

33
Goal of Network Management

34
Network Management Functional Grouping

35
Network Management
Functional Grouping

Figure presents a top

down view of network
management functions.
It comprises three major
groups: I) network and
service provisioning, II)
network and service
Operations, and III)
network I & M.

36
Network Management
Functional Grouping

Network provisioning is the

primary responsibility of the
Engineering group. The
Customer Relation group.

The customer Relations group

deals with clients and
subscribers in providing
services planned and designed
by the Engineering group.

Network I &M is the primary

responsibility of the Plant
Facilities group.

37
 Network Provisioning
New or modifications to
network provisioning may also
be initiated by management
decisions.
Planning and efficient use of
equipment can be achieved
with good inventory
mangement of current and
future modifications of
network configuration by the
Network provisioning group.

38
Network Management Functional Flow Chart

39
 Network Management Functional Flow Chart....
Interaction between the groups are shown below. Normal daily operations are the functions
of the Network Operations group, which controls and administers a NOC.
This is the nerve center of network management operations. The functions of NOC are
primarily concerned with network operations, its secondary responsibilities are network
provisioning and network I & M.
The associated service operations are handled by a subscriber operation center (SOC) and
customer relations mangement(CRM).

40
 Network Provisioning
Network Provisioning consists
of network planning and design
and is the responsibility of the
Engineering group.
The Engineering group keeps
track of new technologies and
introduces them as needed.
What is needed and when it is
needed are determined from
analysis of traffic and
performance data provided by
the network operations.

41
 Network Operations and NOC

The functions of network operations are administered by the NOC.

They are concerned with daily operations of the network and
providing network services.
ISO has defined five OSI network management application
 Fault management,
 Configuration management
 Performance management
 Security management
 Account management.
They are also responsible for gathering statistics and generating
reports for mangement, systems support, and users.
NMS and tools are a neccessity for NOC operations. They are used
in various management applications

42
 1. Fault Management / Service Restoration

 Whenever there is a service failure , it is NOC's responsibilty

to restore service as soon as possible.

 This involves detection and isolation of the problem causing

the failure, and restoration of service.

 In several failure situations, the network will do this

automatically. This network feature is called self -healing.

43
 1. Fault Management / Service Restoration


In other situations, NMS can detect failures of components
and indicate with appropriate alarms.

 Restoration of service does not include fixing the cause of

the problem.

 That responsibility usually rests with the I & M group. A

trouble ticket is generated and followed up for restoration of
the problem by the I &M group.

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 Trouble Ticket Administration


Trouble ticket adminstration is the administrative part of fault
management and is used to track problems in the network.

All problems, including non-problems, are to be tracked until
resolved.
 Periodic analysis of the data, which are maintained in a database,
is done to establish patterns of the problems for follow-up
action.
 There are trouble- tracking systems to automate the tracking of
troubles from the automatic generation of a trouble ticket by a
NMS to the resolution of the problem.

45
 Configuration Management

There are three sets of configuration of the network.

Static configuration
Permanent configuration
Planned configuration

Static configuration is the one that the network would bring up if it
is started from an idle status.

The current running configuration, which is the second , could be
different from that of the permanent configuration

The third configuration is the planned configuration of the future
when the configuration data will change as the network is changed.

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 Performance Management

Data need to be gathered by NOC and kept updated in a timely
fashion in order to perform some of the functions, as well as
tune the network for optimum performance.
 Network statistics include data on traffic, network availability,
and network delay.
 Traffic data can be captured based on volume of traffic in
various segments of the network.

47
 Performance Management....


Traffic data can also be obtained based on different applications
such as Web traffic, email, and network news, or based on transport
protocols at various layers such as TCP, UDP, IP, IPX, Ethernet,
TR, FDDI, etc.
 Traffic statistics are helpful in detecting trends and planning future
needs.
 Performance data on availability and delay are useful for tuning the
network to increase the reliability and to improve its response time.

48
 Security Management
 It can cover very broad range of security.

It involves physically securing the network, as well as access to
the network by users.
 Access privilege to application software is not the responsibility
of NOC unless the application is either owned or mainained by
NOC.
 A security database is established and maintained by NOC for
access to the network and network information.
 There are other aspects of security management such as
firewalls and cryptograpy.

49
 Accounting Management

 It administers cost allocation of the usage of

network.
 Metrices are established to measure the usage of
resources and services provided.

50
 Network Installation and Maintenance
 The network I &M group takes care of all activities
of installation and maintenance of equipment and
transmission facilities.
 This group is the service arm of the Engineering
group for installation and fixing troubles for
network operations.

The group works closely with the Help Desk in
responding to the problems reported from the field.

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 Network Management Dumbell Architecture

Network management dumbell architecture for interoperability is

shown in Figure where two vendor systems A and B exchange
common management messages.
The messages consists of management information data (type, id, and
status of managed objects, etc.) and management controls (setting and
changing configuration of an object).

52
 The protocols and service associated with dumb bell architecture

 Application services are the management-related applications such as

fault and configuration mangement.
 Management protocols are CMIP for the OSI model and SNMP for
the Internet model.
 Transport protocols are the first four OSI layers for the OSI model
and TCP/IP over any of the first two layers for the Internet model.

53
 Network Management Components

Figure models a hierarchical

configuration of two network
agents monitoring two sets of
manged objects.

The agent could be an embedded agent in a network element or an EMS

communicating with agents embedded in the network elements.
 An NMS is at the top of the hierarchy.

Each network agent monitors its respective objects.

Either in response to a polled query from the NMS or trigerred by a local

alarm, the agent communicates to the NMS the relevant data.

54
Network Management Interoperability

55
Peer networks can communicate network management messages and controls
between each other.
An example where such a configuration could be implemented would be two
NMSs associated with two telecommunication networks belonging to two
network service providers, for example an interexchange carrier and a local
access provider.
As the two NMSs communicate with each other, each NMS can superimpose the
data from the other and present an integrated picture to the network
administrator.

56
What is the perspective of network management

57
 Network Management Perspective

1] Domain
2] Protocol
3] Network and Transmission Technologies

58
 1] Network Management Perspective
Domains : The network management can be perceived as management
of domain.
The domain can be any of a selected group of parameters having
common attributes.
Thus , a geographical domain refers to the subdivision of a large
geographical region. For example, in India the telcommunication
adminstration is divided into circles, and each circles maintains its
own telecommunication network.
Another classification of a domain can be based on vendor
products. Thus, we could have different vendors' management
systems managing their respective products.

59
 1] Network Management Perspective....
Domains
A third perspective of looking at domains can be from the
technology perspective.
For example, IP based products, telcommunication products,
broadband communication products, and digital transport products
such as SDH could each define a domain managed by a separate
NMS, as well as a different adminstrative group.

60
 1] Network Management Perspective...

Protocols: Network management can be perceived

from the protocol used to manage the network such
as internet-based SNMP and OSI based Common
Management Information Protocol/ Common
Management Information Service Element
(CMIP/CMISE).
Traffic use of various protocols at each protocol
layer can be monitored.

61
 1] Network Management Perspective...
Network and Transmission Technologies: An end-to- end network
system could be viewed as comprising multiple network
technologies traversing different transmission media and carrying
information in different transmission modes, each managed from a
different network management perspective.
Thus, an end- to end communication, which can be represented as a
logical circuit, could be made up of network elements comprising
IP -based routers and ATM -based switches.

62
 1] Network Management Perspective...
Network and Transmission Technologies:
It can traverse globally through coaxial cable in an access network,
wireless transmission over continents, fiber optic cable over land, on a
WAN, and twisted copper wire at home.
The transmission mode could be digital TDM, or ATM, or a broadband
access mode.
An integrated NMS is used to manage end-to-end availability of a circuit
that deploys multivendor and multitechnology network elements.

63
 2] Service Management Perspective

The network is to provide service to customers and consequently what

needs to be managed are the services.
The real concern of service providers is more about service management.
Providing quality of service to satisfy the customer's needs requires
network mangement.
However, while network management focuses on the physical network,
service management focuses on services offered over the network and
those services meeting customer needs and satisfaction.
Various quality of service (QoS) parameter are defined and an SLA is
reached between the service provider and the customer. There are
several OSSs that provide different types of service management.

OSS : Operational support system

64
 2] Service Management Perspective...
Communication services can be offered as public switched network
services, Internet services, virtual private network, real time
interative audio and video services, and others too numerous to list.
Computing services are offered to clients using applications running on
servers.
These servers and applications running on them need to be managed
centrally by the service provider or enterprise that owns them.
This management is also known as enterprise management.
It monitors the health of system resources, as well as the applications that
run on them.
These are managed service offerings available to manage multiple
enterprise networks from a common management facility.

65
 3] OSS [ Operational support system ]Perspective
Provisioning System: The logical and physical network has to be
provisioned to provide the desired service to the customer. An OSS,
provisioning management system, does this function using several other
OSSs such as inventory management system, the service order system,
and the element and NMSs. Provisioning management includes circuits
provisioning, service provisioning and network provisioning.
Inventory Management System : It includes inventory of equipment and
facilities. We can generalize equipment as active components forming
nodes of a network and facilities as passive components linking the
nodes.
Customer Relations Management (CRM) operation support system
manages complaints reported by the customers. A proactive approach to
CRM is the service provider calling the customer on detecting a service
outage indicated by NMS.

66
 3] OSS Perspective....

Trouble Ticket and Work Force Management: It manages the

troubles detected by the NMS and generates work order in the
Work Force Management Systems. Various OSSs help with the
remote testing, either on -demand or automated, in installation
and maintenance.

IP Telecommunication Application Management : The

traditional analog services of voice and video are now offered as
digital services. Such services as voice- over- IP and video-
over- IP applications require not only management of data, but
also connection management. Sessions that are equivalent to a
circuit need to be extablished and managed.
67
 Long questions

1] Discuss about the goals and functions of network management.

2] Explain about the network management architecture and organization.
3] Write the functional groupings of network management.
4] What are the challenges of IT Manager?
5] What are the perspective ot IT Manager ?
6]Describe 2 tier & 3 tier network management organization model.
7]Compare SNMP V1.V2 & V3

68
 Short questions

1] What is the goal of Network Management?

2] Draw the Dumbbell architecture for Network management
3] List some common network problems.
4]In a network if a 3com router is added by one of the department what
update will happen in MIB?
5] Why NMS is required?
6] What is trap? List various types of SNMP trap.
7]Explain SNMP v1 PDUs
8] What is management information tree?

69